Perfect Fit
by ThereIsMoreThanOneOfEverything
Summary: Once the bridge closes, Lincoln Lee has a ton of adjusting to do. Olivia Dunham's been through more than her share of stressors lately, too. A tale of how they get from there, to the couple we see in S5.


"When I said I could use help finding an apartment, I thought maybe you'd throw me a few web links." Lincoln paused to watch the half grin out of Olivia that the words earned him. "I really didn't mean to tie up your first crisis-free Saturday in forever."

She shrugged, eyes on the highway. He'd never seen her in weekend mode: Jeans and sunglasses, a much-loved and battered black leather jacket. She looked lighter, somehow; younger with the need to command and be 'on' lifted from her shoulders for a couple of days. There was no fidgeting on her part, no breaks in their banter about the beautiful afternoon and the joys of having been able to sleep in for once.

She was… very at ease. It was a state he'd never pictured her in before.

Every so often he'd catch a glimpse from her that felt as if it were going right through him, like maybe she was seeing him in new lights, too. He hoped he wasn't imagining it.

"I'm sure you'd manage fine on your own. But you haven't got a car yet, and you don't know the highways. This is much more efficient," she took the next exit onto the smaller, three lane road heading into Manhatan, and Lincoln swallowed a snort at the sign overhead as they flew under it. "Besides, I love scoping out apartments, it'll be…. uh.…what's so funny?"

"We're on the 'Richard Nixon Parkway,'" He said it as if that should be enough to merit a chuckle. "And right before you came and picked me up at the hotel? I was listening to a report about Congress upping the funding for "Green Frontier," the group that's trying to repair the ecological system. The one JFK is chairing?"

"Yeah. So?"

"So you have zero idea how much adapting I have ahead of me. I mean, a serious rewiring of everything I think I know is going to have to take place."

"You're not sorry? Are you? That you came?"

"Not a bit. I feel more alive than I have in…well, ever."

"Great. Then how about you take me to dinner tonight? You know, to say 'thanks for finding me such a perfect apartment?' We can get you better oriented, and you can tell me why either of those things you shared is so intriguing."

"I can't wait to see your face. Fair warning, though; they're not happy stories."

"It's okay. We're kind of used to unhappy endings over here."

* * *

The first three apartments they looked at were 'crap all' in Olivia's estimation; either too small, dark, or in buildings that were older construction and showing it.

The fourth was 'wow' and then some; third floor below the penthouse, floor to ceiling windows, views of the Hudson River and the setting sun. The open-plan kitchen and living room had been redone: New floors, lighting system with various colors and modes and a remote management system for every lamp, thermostat, even the entertainment system. Not to mention web-enabled appliances and en suite guest room.

"Take it," Olivia hissed when the broker stepped outside to answer a call from another prospective renter, her eyes dancing with 'oh, I want this place'. "Grab it before someone scoops it out from under you."

"I don't know, it's…. kind of the rock star of apartments. I'm not sure I can live up to an environment this… um… posh."

"C'mon, of course, you can. You'll never find another one this nice on the Upper West Side at the price. Okay, maybe it's at the top of the range you'd planned on, but it's really a steal."

He nodded in a way that told her he knew how right she was. Frankly, he'd been happily jolted when he heard the salaries this side of the bridge. Then they'd filled him in on the rents and he got the reason for the differential.

"Don't you like it?

"Like it?" He spun around, his eyes down on his reflection in the shiny, blonde wood floors. "Hell, I'd marry it if…"

"Order the good sandwich, Lincoln," she said, and he'd stopped in mid-pivot, cocking his head with a smile that asked 'what?' "It's what a friend of mine used to tell me. Linda. She was my lunch buddy at the department.

"What happened to her?"

"She was in Central Park. In the sheep's meadow. When the rift off of 67th Street erupted, and the area was quarantined. She never left her comm off, ever, but she happened to that day and we had no way to warn her. She was declared dead, with the others in the Amber. It's been two years, but I still….I think of what she used to say. A lot."

He'd gone to her and pulled her in, held her tight. First time ever.

She let him, and he didn't say anything. Words seemed inadequate for the kinds of losses they'd suffered here; losses he was only beginning to understand, and that he knew could strike him anytime, now, too.

He took the apartment. He still wasn't sure about it, but she said it was so him; open and bright, warm and welcoming.

How could he not take it?

* * *

The first night Olivia stayed over, she had a nightmare.

"Hey, shhhh…. Woah, it's….okay..."

She shook in his arms, a leg thrown over his and her face buried in by his shoulder. Holding on to him for dear life.

"You're okay. We're safe. I promise…." he said when she rolled away. He watched her eyes open and saw she was still only half awake. "Where were you, just now? What was happening?"

"I don't know. I don't know where I was. I have this dream sometimes, it's … I don't know how to describe it except to say I'm running, chasing someone who's stolen something incredibly precious from me. Irreplaceable. I never catch them, I never see what they….but it's like my heart is breaking, like they'vet stolen part of me. And then the sky and the ground, they're folding toward each other and I'm trying to run but...it's harder to move, there's less and less air to breathe…."

"Do you think it's about the other universe? Or the rifts here, maybe? It sounds like being Ambered and _that_ it's not an unreasonable thing to fear."

He noticed how long it took her to respond.

"No. I don't think it's that at all. Can I tell you another time? When you won't wonder if you're dating an insane woman?"

"I wouldn't. But yes…another time."

"Do you miss them?" She sounded more awake now, but distant– like the dream and the talk of the other universe had colored her whole mood, pulling her away from him. "Your Walter? Your Olivia and Astrid and…."

"_You're_ my Olivia. And, no. I know it's only been three months but… I've landed. I'm here. I'll always remember them, but I don't miss them. You?"

"I miss Walter. I really do, so much." her heart was in her voice, and it made him reach up and over her to pull her in close again. "And I miss the way it smelled over there; the air, the way the food tasted. You gave up a lot, you know? Why?"

"Because of something Olivia told me when I met her. She said when she joined Fringe, she realized it was where she'd find her answers. The time I spent with you, after _your_ Lincoln died? It hit me then that my answers are all here."

"Listen, I'm sure I don't have to tell you," she pulled back to look him in the eyes. "How part of me has been holding back a little. You've been so patient about it. Can you be for a while longer?"

"Sure," he looked straight up, eyes all mock-innocence. "But you'd better be careful. This place is quite the date magnet. Makes women think I'm far more interesting than I really am. I can only be expected to hold off the throngs off for so long…"

He got a full out snort out of her, which made him snicker, which made her try to pin him. The ensuing wrestling match and waves of grunted laughter drove the dream away.

* * *

The day it happened, the thing that would make or break them, neither saw it coming.

"I like the haircut," Olivia wasn't looking at him as she said it, was in the passenger's seat rifling through her work bag, making sure she hadn't forgotten the wallet with her Show Me in it.

"It's too short. And I found greys. Three. They're ganging up, the rat bastards."

"You are going to look _awesome_ with gray hair, I can't wait."

"That's….perverse. Wrong."

"A-ha!" she waved the wallet. "Thank God, we'd be late for work if we had to turn around."

The traffic was thicker than usual, which was saying something. It had taken him all these months to get used the pace; the highways were noticeably more jammed and the speed limit fifteen miles faster all the way around. It wasn't just the roadways; people walked faster, talked a touch harsher, more brusquely. He chalked it up to the uncertainties of a world more visibly in decay, and found that not only could he accept it without it pushing up his blood pressure but he'd adapted to it, changed with it.

'Maybe we just made different choices,' he remembered his counterpart telling him hours before he'd died. As in, 'maybe that's why I swagger and you hesitate'. Lincoln glanced in his rear view mirror now, and saw someone more in between the two of them – not Liv's old partner, not the man who'd crossed over; the person he was becoming.

"Hey, do you think we need to talk to Broyles? Now that you're moving in?"

"You mean talk with him, like, officially?" Olivia flipped open a fresh box of Bobbins and offered him one. "Why would we?"

"Fraternization rules."

"Not a term I've ever heard. You mean they dictate over there who can and can't live together, based on their jobs?

"If they want to work in the same agency, yeah, sometimes. Even the bigger private companies have a policy. Peter was a civilian contractor so it never came up for him and Olivia but if they were both full-out FBI …well, there'd be paperwork to fill out, definitely. Maybe a reporting layer put between them. Or one of them would be re-assigned to another division."

"Wow," she looked surprised by the ways of the other world for the first time in a long time. "For a supposedly democratic society they sure have a lot of rules."

"Yeah. Heck of a lot more.. um.. libertarian over here. So I take it that's a no, we don't need to?"

"If we tell Phillip I'm moving in, all he's gonna want to know is when we're throwing the dinner party, having everyone over."

"That sounds like fun, actually."

"It does. But I'm so not cooking."

"Me either. We'll have it catered."

"Deal."

* * *

They worked separate angles on a case that day, Olivia pulling research online while he and another agent tracked down and interviewed witnesses. She wasn't at her desk when he got back to the office and it was some time before she appeared, walking his way from Broyles' office, her face a frozen thundercloud.

"Liv, what the…"

"Do you remember me telling you about a guy who used to work with us? Charlie?"

"Of course. He moved to Carolina, right? Got married?"

"He did but… he lied. About why he left. I just found out it wasn't about downshifting his career, spending more time with his wife. He's… sick. He has this blood infection and the doctors warned him the drugs that keep it at bay they're…. fading on him. He's losing. Lincoln, he's in the hospital he could die."

"I'm so sorry," he wrapped a hand around her wrist, thumb running over the back of her hand. The urge to hold her was there, but he knew that wouldn't be welcomed right now, especially in an office full of people. "We should go see him. Do you want to…"

"I am going," she said. "Today."

"Oh."

"I never take time off, so I have something like seven weeks of vacation accrued. Phillip said I could…"

"I don't … I would think you'd…."

"I'm hoping I can help him, maybe get Walternate to offer up an assist from his science team and…."

"I thought that … you were …I thought we…"

"It's not about us, Lincoln, it's …Charlie is an important part of my life from the days when things were…"

"Simpler? Or better?"

"Don't."

"Olivia, I thought you moving in maybe meant you were all the way there? In terms of us."

"Did you? Really, deep down?"

He huffed a sound that said she was right. It had been easier to ignore the question, especially when everything else was so wonderful.

* * *

"Are you sure? There is absolutely nothing that needs chasing on _any_ case? Anyone's list, even Lazy Stephen's?" Lincoln put away the last of the leftovers from the noodle house, and walked to the window, to the one spot where the sunset was still warming the living room floor. "Don't make that sound at me, we all call him Lazy Stephen you included. Because he spins in his chair. And he's lazy. Okay, listen, if anything comes up this weekend….yeah, thanks Eliot.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the glass.

Wednesday and Thursday had been okay; they'd been busy in the office, had even put a case to rest. And he'd had text messages from her, a couple of calls. Her friend was ill and terrifyingly frail, but rallying. There was hope. His wife was nice, and so happy to meet her. She should have visited them before this. Months ago.

She was going to be there for a while.

"Don't be angry," she'd texted and he'd written back "I'm not. At all."

He started to write more, and then erased the more.

Disappointed? Confused? Sad? What good would it do saying them when she wasn't _trying _to make him any of the above.

"I'm fine," he said it aloud, now, and opened his eyes.

He could dial up a movie and crash early. Drive upstate tomorrow and watch the thirty percent of the foliage this world had going for it change from green to a dull, mottled brown. Or sleep in. Very late. Maybe until Monday.

"Hi, what do you have for flights to Hilton Head?" He was pulling a suitcase out of the closet ten seconds later. "Yes, Hilton Head, Carolina. Is there another Hilton Head you serve? No, no, I'm not being sarcastic. I… hit my head a few years ago."

He _must_ be out of his head. But what was she going to do, kick him to the curb

Well, that was the question.

* * *

"Hello?" Lincoln peered into room R338 when he didn't see anyone immediately around.

"Over here," a lone, male voice – heavy with exhaustion and pain meds, a little whiskey- and-cigarettes rasp in it. And something else, too; a touch of 'amused despite it all' maybe. "Abandon hope and enter."

"Charlie?" Lincoln finally spotted him in the far corner; sweats and a dark t-shirt under hospital issue robe, sitting in an overstuffed recliner, book in his lap and IV in his arm.

"Well look at this…" he flipped the book shut, dropped it over the side of the chair. "All the Lincoln, half the swagger. She wasn't making you up, was she? Been giving her grief ever since she got here, telling her to stop dreaming up imaginary friends…"

"Sorry to show up unannounced, I tried to call once the plane landed…"

"Your comm carrier isn't the strongest in the area, so it can be hit or miss," Charlie had been scrutinizing him, but flinched, now, eyes shutting, the hand on his IV arm clenching. "Aw hell… hold on… Jeez…"

A wave of something, pain, dizziness, seemed to roll through him and then to pass. It wasn't easy to watch, he felt the need to fill the silence.

"Olivia tells me you and my counterpart were very good friends."

"Yeah. He was a piece of work; smart, quick thinker. Ball buster. Good man. He bust on you a fair amount?"

"We worked together well. In the end. Olivia said… she thought, from what she heard, that you were far worse off. I'm glad to see you up, if not around."

"I was worse. I was dying. Did you know that an itch is, technically, pain?" he paused and Lincoln shook his head. "Let me tell you, it can get so bad you beg them to knock you out. But I was too proud to ask for more help, I felt like … I don't know, almost like it'd be begging. Then my wife calls your girl, she calls Walternate and suddenly I've got five new flavors of bigger, better meds pumping through me. It's a mistake, trying to stand all on our own, but I guess it's a mistake we all make it some time. Even Liv."

"Not to pry," Lincoln chose to skirt the implications in the last two words. "But all she said is that you have a blood infection and that it wasn't stable any more… not as controllable. The new meds; is there hope…"

"There's always hope. 'Til there isn't. My gut says yes, based on the last day or so. But I'm mostly trying not to worry about it until the doctors can tell me more. Meantime, it's not catching. I would not, however, come knocking if you need a transfusion."

"Where is she?"

"They drove back to my house to pick me up fresh clothes, get us something to eat. There's time, they only left twenty minutes ago. Maybe you should stop stalling, and ask me what you want to ask me?"

Lincoln looked him up and down; the world-weary smile playing at his lips, the challenge in his eyes and dove in.

"This feels presumptuous, you don't know me from… but I _know_ I'm good for her. With her. That I'll never let her down on the big things, ever… not on purpose anyway. But I don't say it because… I know it's not words she needs. _She_ has to believe it. You seem to be really close with her. Like a mentor. So…"

"What is it I've got that you don't have?"

"I guess that's one way to put it."

"A long track record with her. I was there when she started out her career – when she was learning who she could rely on and who she couldn't. You know, a shit-ton of people claim they love a strong woman – friends, boyfriends, bosses, they'll spout the line. But more often than not when one actually shows up... it turns out they're full of crap. Or they only value the tough, so the strong woman, she's suddenly got no breathing room to be vulnerable, ever, or she pays for it big time. Olivia learned she could rely on me – on Lincoln. But believe me, it took time."

"I told her I'd be patient. Maybe this is a mistake."

"I'd say it's not. There's a line, right? Between being patient and being powerless? You must have felt like you didn't have a choice. I'm glad you showed up. I was thinking yesterday, once I felt good enough to think about anything, that if you didn't the jury was still out. But here you are. And… I put in a good word for you. Told her she really didn't want to turn into a work nun and she's running out of Lincolns."

"So you think she'll be good with it? Me just being here?"

"Oh, I have no idea. She could pitch a fit. We'll see soon, right?"

"He loved her, didn't he?"

"Yes. But they were better off friends. Together? Wouldn't have been the right fit at all – even though to outside eyes, it might have looked it."

"Thanks, Charlie."

"You're welcome. Hey, you wouldn't be up for a junk food and liquor run before they get back?"

"Is it okay with what they're pumping into you?"

"Probably not. But man, I'd kill for something more enjoyable than saline, sandwiches and water."

"Not happening."

"Probably best. _He_ would have rolled the dice and done it, though. Just saying."

"Still not happening."

"Yeah. I get it. You don't want it on you if I end up flat out again. Wouldn't help your case with her. You kind of lose either way, though, 'cause you're doing the right thing but it's kind of, oh, stick up the buttish, I guess…"

"This how you used to bust on him?"

"Close. I'm going light on you since we just met. Like it?"

"Actually, I do."

* * *

When Charlie started to seem the worse for need of sleep, Lincoln excused himself and paced the halls. It was how he happened to be looking her way when his wife and Olivia walked off the elevator.

There is a tiny moment when someone sees you, and they show you with their eyes, their expression you are to them. He felt that moment coming, held his breath and only drew it back in again when she smiled – a gaze that said 'there you are.'

"Hi," he said, and nodded at Charlie's wife as she patted his arm and kept going into the hospital room.

"Hi. I was going to call you in a minute," she kicked his boot with her. "I thought you'd be home, about to crash for the night. What are you doing here?"

"Just being where I feel like I should be. New policy of mine. It's been working so well the last six months, I figured I'd stay the course."

"I'm glad you did. I'm glad you let me go without giving me grief, and that you came after all."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Listen, all the holding back, my waiting for you to change your mind or worrying _what if I lose you, too_, trying to not get hurt? With a little breathing room it hit me…. It's too late; if I lose you I'll already hurt. 'Cause I'm all in."

"Yes!" he raised both arms in mock victory and dropped them around her when she stepped in, pulling him to her. "That was not meant as a celebration of your newly vulnerable heart. You know that right?"

"I know that."

She was shaking softly, with laughter, and if there was a tear or three mixed in from the woman who did not cry he wasn't going to let her know he'd noticed.

* * *

"I can't believe you splurged like this," Olivia shifted in her chair, fidgeting, her eyes on the endless black sky. "We could have gone to Australia for a week for what this cost."

"We can still go to Australia for a week. Next year. Or maybe the year after."

Lincoln glanced between her and the window inches from their table. He didn't want to miss the spectacle, but he also didn't want to miss the sight of her watching it.

"Here we go," she said, then muttered a half spoken 'wow'. The entire room at the Maison Reveur went silent as it started; the slow reveal of meniscus, then, atmosphere, then the brilliant, blue and white ball of cloud swept rock at Earthrise.

He waited until the cheers and applause died down to pull out the small, black box and pop it open.

"Olivia, will you marry me?"

She'd certainly known it was coming, but here eyes still widened at the sight of the ring- the healthy chunk of gemstone that turned from red to green, from amber to brilliant blue as it moved in his hand and caught the light at different angles.

"That is …. _Ohhh_…. what is that?"

"Alexandrite," he said, turning it in circles to make the colors flash. "It's one of the most unlikely gemstones in the universe. Seemed… appropriate."

It slid on like it was made for her, and when their fingers twined it looked right and felt right too – support, no pressure or confinement.

They were each a little surprised- how perfect a fit they turned out to be.


End file.
